The Death of a Baby - 26 years later

26 years ago today I gave birth to our firstborn child, a daughter. She died 3 hours after her birth.  I grieved for weeks and then I started to heal and accept her death.

I could have let her death “define” my life. I could have become totally disabled by her death and not wanting to move forward.

Sometimes we have to make decisions in our life to live and go on. We may face a death of a loved one, a job loss, a divorce, an illness. At some point we have to say to ourselves I can’t live in this grief and I must get on with my life. I did that. I was determined that just as much as I loved that little girl; I loved life too and had to move on. That is what I did.

17 months after her death I gave birth to a son. He will be 25 years old in August. Then I gave birth to our youngest son in 1993. He is now 17 years old.

Not a Christmas goes by that I don’t think of her. I look at my two sons sometimes and wonder what their sister would have looked like as a teenager and so on. It is not a time of sadness when I think on these things, but just a “wondering” moment.

Life goes on. Sometimes we have to accept what life hands us and keep on going. My life is full. However, had I decided to live my life stuck in the sadness and anger of her death, I doubt I would be experiencing the fullness of life that I have right now.

I’m a lucky one. I have a wonderful husband who loved me and allowed me to work through my grief in my own way so that I could move on and live my life.